{"id":227,"date":"2017-09-04T18:52:45","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T18:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/?page_id=227"},"modified":"2018-06-01T12:09:22","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T12:09:22","slug":"michael-klein","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/profiles\/michael-klein\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Klein"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MichaelTitle: <\/strong>Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication<\/p>\n

University: <\/strong>James Madison University<\/p>\n

Email: <\/strong>kleinmj@jmu.edu<\/p>\n

Twitter: <\/strong>mkleinhokie<\/p>\n

Website: <\/strong>http:\/\/educ.jmu.edu\/~kleinmj\/<\/p>\n

Description of Work:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I am a mid-career scholar who holds administrative roles in graduate education and medical humanities. This project is a collaborative examination of the ways in which narrative medicine can act as a bridge between rhm and critical medical humanities. Narrative medicine interrogates assumptions held by medical practitioners by providing a space\/voice for patients, caregivers and clinicians. It also allows for reflection of the assumptions held by the medical establishment by opening up discussions to more and varied stakeholders on an equal footing to those traditionally considered experts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a more general sense, I am thinking about ways that the media and popularizations of health and medicine affect the ways in which we view the body and knowledge making surrounding issues of health and wellness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Symposium Submission:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cMoved by the Stories of Illness\u201d: Productive Convergenc<\/b>es in the Medical Humanities and the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This article will use Rita Charon\u2019s text Narrative Medicine<\/i> as a case study to examine productive tension between the medical humanities (MH) and the emerging discipline of the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM). After an examination of how and why RHM might be defining itself as separate from MH, we argue that narrative medicine, particularly Charon\u2019s text, provides a theoretical space where the two fields\u2019 disparate aims are clarified and their potential points of generative contact are resolved. Thus, we \u201cexplore the intersections and tensions between RHM and the medical humanities\u201d while, simultaneously, offering ways that RHM can \u201ccomplement the medical humanities\u201d and \u201cthe medical humanities complement RHM.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those interested in thinking through how to best continue and extend the impressive work of medical rhetoricians over the past twenty years might wonder why and how RHM is slated as distinct from and perhaps even in opposition to MH. Belinda Jack (2015) explains that medical professionals might attribute hostile aims to those working in the medical humanities. Thus, if the humanities in general suffer from the popular perception of their irrelevance, the MHs are perhaps especially susceptible to such criticisms. Scott, Segal, and Ker\u00e4nen (2013) point out that \u201crather than positioning rhetorical negotiation in opposition to evidence-based medicine [\u2026] we might ask how the latter\u2019s implementation is embedded in the former\u201d (p. 2) RHM, thus, is distinct from MH in its desire to put rhetoric to work in the trenches with medical professionals and to uncover how rhetorical concepts are always already present in everyday medical practices. While the current shift in MH toward \u201ccritical medical humanities\u201d might be read as MH\u2019s move to do similar work, RHM\u2019s privileging of rhetoric over the humanities make the aim more emphatic. Still, RHM has much to gain from productive convergences with the MHs, and narrative medicine via Charon\u2019s text offers a site for examining these points of contact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using Charon\u2019s Narrative Medicine<\/i>, revisited through the dual lenses of MH and RHM, we ultimately argue that the tensions between RHM and MH are generative. Further, Charon\u2019s text allows us to articulate the fact that, despite disciplinary divergences, RHM and MH share a core epistemological identity in their interest in \u201cameliorative aims\u201d (Scott, Segal, & Ker\u00e4nen, 2013 p. 2). That is, both MH and RHM draw from narrative medicine\u2019s goal to better understand and improve patients\u2019 experiences by listening to and treating the \u201cwhole\u201d person. Within our rereading, we offer a discussion of the rhetorical effects Charon\u2019s seminal text has had on subsequent texts in multiple disciplines, as well as of how narrative medicine in general can help to more fully account for and hone productive tensions between the medical humanities and the rhetoric of health and medicine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

References\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charon, Rita. Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness<\/i>. Oxford UP, 2008.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack, Belinda. \u201cThe Rise of the Medical Humanities.\u201d Times Higher Education<\/i>. January 22, 2015.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Scott, Blake; Segal, Judy Z.; and Keranen, Lisa. \u201cThe Rhetorics of Health and Medicine: Inventional Possibilities for Scholarship and Engaged Practice.\u201d Poroi<\/i> 9, Iss. 1 (2013): Article 17.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title: Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication University: James Madison University Email: kleinmj@jmu.edu Twitter: mkleinhokie Website: http:\/\/educ.jmu.edu\/~kleinmj\/ Description of Work: I am a … Continue reading “Michael Klein”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":25,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-227","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/227\/revisions\/831"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicalrhetoric.com\/symposium2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}